House of a Thousand Locked Rooms
by Tamoline
Summary: You like to think of your mind as a house with a thousand rooms. It's just some of them you like to pretend don't exist.


Written for The Vampire Diaries Comment Ficathon Part 4

Prompt:  
There she was my new best friend  
High heels in her hands,  
swayin' in the wind While she starts to cry,  
mascara runnin' down her little Bambi eyes:  
"Lana, how I hate those guys."

* * *

Sometimes, you like to think of your mind like a house, a mansion maybe, a vast storytale abode with a thousand rooms.

A shining white facade. Friendly, open spaces. Neat. Well maintained. Maybe, if you can manage it, some interesting curios, good for a thousand stories.

Everything a living place should be.

* * *

"Caroline," a too familiar, precise voice comes from behind you.

You paint on a smile, turn. "Rebekah."

As ever, the sight of her makes your heart catch in your chest. Not like *that*, of course, but the presence of an Original always makes you implicitly aware of your mortality, for want of a better word. You're too aware that, despite your strength and speed, any one of them could kill you on a whim. And you've nothing (you're nothing) special to protect you. Not like Elena.

But the thing is, the sad thing is, the probably sick thing is that you're used to this, the edge of danger.

You're beginning to think that you might thrive on it.

"What can I do for you?" you ask, because if there's one thing you learned even before all the supernatural madness started, it's that people who think they're in charge *love* that question.

She blinks for a moment, as if that was the last response she was expecting. "Would you... like to come for a drink with me?" she asks, with just a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

It's that flaw, more than anything else, which relaxes you. She doesn't demand, she doesn't expect, she doesn't do any of the things that the people in your life just seem to assume as a matter of course.

And, hey, it's alcohol. The pastime of vampires everywhere.

"I would love to," you say with a slight lilt in your voice, and she breaks into the biggest smile you ve ever seen on her. For a moment, she looks absolutely beautiful, and your heart catches again.

* * *

Then there are other sorts of rooms in your house, locked rooms, rooms that no one sees. They're filled with the bad things, the things you can't think of, the things that just keep happening and it feels like they re never going to stop.

Maybe they're all in the basement, maybe you could call them dungeons, maybe if you pretend hard enough, then they won't exist.

(But they do.)

* * *

The Grill is as loud as ever, which can only be good, because neither of you can find anything to say.

Nothing substantive, at any rate, so you fill the void with chatter in between sips, whilst you wait for her to come to the point of you being here together.

(Or until she starts finding you annoying. It's apparently very easy, so you've heard, but rarely been told, at least to your face.)

Finally, "No one's done what you did for me, not for a long time," she says so quietly only your vampiric hearing picks it up. "At the school," she clarifies at your look of incomprehension. "Saved me. You could've gotten away, but you stayed, at the risk of your own life. To save me."

"Oh", slips out of your mouth, and, for a moment, you don't see the Original, not the monster who is so careless with human life, who has threatened you and your friends, but just a girl who dreams of a white knight. You hold her hand gently, and she doesn t flinch away.

Her gaze remains steadfast on the drink. "Certainly not without any... expectations."

And you know too well about expectations.

You give her a genuine smile. "Well, I've never been a saviour before. At least to anyone who really has acknowledged it. So we're both kind of learning."

After that conversation seems to flow a lot easier.

* * *

So you like having a house full of people, metaphorically speaking. Visitors. A constant hubbub to drown out any noise from below.

But, sometimes, when you're alone, especially at night, in your bed, you can still hear the screams.

* * *

Much to your surprise, you end up talking to Rebekah again. More than once, even. She talks about the things she's seen, done and, much to your surprise, you tell her about growing up in small town America. What it's like to be human, something she's almost forgotten.

It... works.

There are things you don't talk about, by unspoken consensus. Places she comes to a halt in her stories, before continuing on a different tangent. For your part, there are the carefully excised holes in your life that you're so used to not talking about, corresponding to old boyfriends and your other parent.

Neither of you question, so neither of you have to answer.

(And if you note that neither of you mention 'Damon' or 'Klaus' or fathers... you hide that even from yourself.)

It comes to a head when, after a mammoth bitching and drinking session, you both happen to fall asleep in the lounge. When you awake, heart pounding, eyes suddenly wide open, you're sure that you've had one of *those* dreams.

It takes you a second to realise that Rebekah has *exactly* the same expression on her face, the shadows of hidden rooms of her own in her eyes.

Your natural protective instincts jump into play, and you put your best reassuring smile on your face.

"Hey," you say, moving slowly, gently, over to her.

Her face closes. "What?" she asks, suspiciously.

You stop, take a breath, and try and think rather than act. You sit down on the sofa, looking over at her in the chair. "It s just... if you don't mind, I need a hug right now," you say with more honesty than you really meant to use, your voice ending up as a squeak as your vision mists.

Sometimes it's so hard having to be strong.

In a flash, she's there, holding onto you, and you can breathe again, even though you really don t need to.

Thank you.

"Well I do owe you," she says, only a little stiffly.

It... helps.

* * *

There are rooms within you that you've never been able to take anyone else to. Your mother, because you know what she d try and do. (And that she might get hurt or killed.) Tyler, for much the same reasons. (And there's a part of you that worries he might think you deserved it.) Elena, because how can you, when she has so much on her already? (And she spends so much time with *him*.)

So you ve just done the best you could, kept on going, shown the world that you're not to be pushed around.

And it's worked, it really has. You've done so much more than you ever thought you could.

But, now, with Rebekah, despite everything, maybe you have someone who can take your hand as you face these horrors, in both your minds.

Together.


End file.
